Northwest Labs B103 and Zoom
Frontostriatal dopamine in motivation, decisions and action
Motivation lets us pursue goals, ultimately improving our motor and cognitive performance when needed. Many brain disorders lead to apathy, a deficit in motivation, or impulsivity — sometimes characterised as too much motivation. This axis seems to be under dopaminergic control, with reward incentives increasing control gain, deepening the basin of neural attractors. But paradoxically, apathy and impulsivity correlate positively across people. I suggest a computational framework to explain this, where medial frontal ‘goal’ neurons bias action selection via synaptic outcome-to-action representations.